View full sizeDennis Nett / The Post-StandardExterior of the Center of Excellence building in Syracuse.

Syracuse, NY -- Five Upstate New York companies will receive a total of $246,475 to bring their "green'' technologies to market, the Syracuse Center of Excellence announced Monday.

The fifth round of Commercialization Assistance Program grants have the potential of creating 111 jobs. The previous four rounds of CAP grants are responsible for 152 jobs in the state, according to the Center of Excellence, a federation of more than 200 companies and institutions focused on environmental and energy innovations.

"This is where we take ideas from the laboratory into the marketplace,'' said Edward Bogucz, the center's executive director, at a news conference held at the Syracuse University-IBM Green Data Center on SU's South Campus.

The announcement was made at the data center because it employs computer cooling technology developed by a grant recipient, Vette Corp. of Ontario, near Rochester. Vette will receive $50,000.

Stephen D. Cannerelli / The Post-Standard
George P. Dannecker, CEO and president of Vette Corp., speaks Monday at a news conference where he accepted a $50,000 grant from the Syracuse Center of Excellence to help his company commercialize computer cooling technology used in the Syracuse University-IBM Green Data Center on SU's South Campus. Pictured behind Dannecker are Ed Bogucz, executive director of the Center of Excellence; Robert M. Simpson, CEO and president of the economic development group CenterState CEO; and Syracuse Assemblyman William Magnarelli.

The company's Coolcentric racks hold stacks of computer servers. Heat generated by the computers is cooled by water flowing through hoses in the doors of the racks. Cooling the air before it gets into the room saves 25 percent of the energy normally used to cool the servers, said George P. Dannecker, Vette's CEO and president. The technology allows for more computers to be racked in a smaller space, meaning data centers can be built smaller, Dannecker said.

The SU-IBM data center is the most energy-efficient data center in the world, said Mark Weldon, executive director of corporate relations for the university. It uses 50 percent of the energy used by traditional data centers, thanks to super-efficient gas turbines, heat exchangers and an absorption chiller that turns hot air into cold water.

The other grant recipients announced today:

• ACT Bioenergy, of Schenectady, will receive $50,000. The company is producing a high-efficiency boiler for buildings that turns wood pellets and chips into a gas that can be burned for heat.

• Orthogonal Inc., of Ithaca, will receive $50,000 for further development of a non-toxic photoresist -- a light-sensitive material -- for producing organic light-emitting diodes that can be used in lights and solar cells.

• e2e Materials, of Ithaca, will receive $50,000 to buy the equipment needed to make complex shapes out of its biodegradable composite material. The material -- fashioned from plant resins and plant fibers such as flax -- is intended to replace plywood that gives off formaldehyde and other pollutants.

The CAP grants are funded by state money secured through Assemblyman William Magnarelli, D-Syracuse.